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Wednesday, April 10, 2013

70 Percent of Mobile Searches Lead to Online Action Within an Hour

If you received traffic from a search engine today, send a thank you card to Alan Emtage. He built the very first computer search engine back in 1989. But sadly, he was so far ahead of his time, he didn’t see the future value in what he created so he didn’t file a patent or lay any claim to the technology.

Enter Google, who turned search into a multi-billion dollar industry then started to do it again with mobile. In the last year, Google’s mobile ad revenue went from 2.5 billion to 8 billion and that’s in a sector that’s barely begun to take hold.

There’s money in search because search is working. iAcquire and SurveyMonkey conducted a study and found that 70% of mobile searches lead to an online action within an hour.

The majority of folks are searching on a smartphone, but 40% use a tablet. So what happens when they hit your website? It might look great on the wide screen of an iPad, but what does it look like on a smaller Kindle Fire or a Windows phone? If the site isn’t mobile friendly, 40% of consumers will move on to their next choice.

And how about this?

The majority of mobile searchers are 18-29. 45% of this group uses mobile search daily.

What are all these people searching for?

40% of people are looking to buy something. Surprisingly, only 10% are looking for a visual response.

As far as search ads go, 65% of those surveyed said they won’t click. Ouch. But before you panic, check this out:

50% of people who click on ads, think they’re clicking on regular search results.